Into Mischief’s Iron Dome triumphs in Empire Classic
October 25, 2026
Iron Dome won a thrilling renewal of the $250,000 Empire Classic S. Oct. 24 at Belmont Park, surging to the front in the final strides to win a three-horse photo.
The 4-year-old Into Mischief colt, who is a half-brother to Mr. Buff, winner of this same race in 2019 and 2020, is now himself a two-time stakes winner of $535,511.
Iron Dome was always close to the pace through the entire 1 1/8-mile trip, never more than three lengths from the leader. After having clear running for the first five furlongs, Iron Dome was bottled up behind horses and shuffled back a bit around the final turn.
He swung four-wide coming into the stretch and steadily made up ground from there. Tricky Business took the lead with a furlong to go, but Iron Dome had his measured and got his head in front in deep stretch to win by a head over the late-charging Wynstock.
“Ricardo (Santana, Jr.) rode a perfect race, sat, didn’t get impatient, and at the eighth pole, just asked him to go and he just ran them down,” co-owner Michael Levinson said. “I mean that was a perfect ride and Steve (Asmussen) did a great job training our horse up to this race. This has been our target the entire year.”
Levinson, part of L & N Racing LLC, co-own own Iron Dome with Chester and Mary Broman, who also bred the colt.
Into Mischief, who is tied with Dubawi (IRE) as the all-time leading sire of Breeders’ Cup winners, has three probables for next weekend’s championships at Keeneland: Sovereignty in the Classic (G1), Hughes in the Juvenile (G1) and Eclatant in the Filly & Mare Sprint (G1).